


lay us down, we're in love

by skellington



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, allora, am i right or am i right, i like morbid things, i want you all to cry, this is actually pretty sad, with a splash of sterek because what's a teen wolf fic without sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 19:24:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skellington/pseuds/skellington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it hurt. it burned a hole right through cora's heart, a wound that wouldn't heal supernaturally or with time. no, this pain would never be forgotten. this ache would never find its way out. the worst part -- the worst part is, that cora isn't sure she wants it to leave. she keeps hurting, because if she doesn't hurt she'll hollow.<br/>cora wants to find allison. maybe rip her throat out with her teeth. she wants to hate allison, hate her for doing what she did, but the problem is that she can't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lay us down, we're in love

when cora hears her name, she collapses in on herself. she can feel her chest tighten and her heartbeat speed up. her vision gets blurry and she shakes, and she damns herself for ever letting a mere human girl wreck her like this. derek and peter can tell when this happens, and that's typically why they dance around the subject and cast anyone who mentions "she-who-must-not-be-named" (as peter refers to her,) a warning glance. under any other circumstance, cora would hate it. she would hate her uncle and her brother shielding her from things, like she can't handle herself.

but she finds that within the last year, she can't. she really, really can't.

she's irritable -- really, really irritable; so much that stiles has snatched the sourwolf title from her brother and crowned her with it instead. she had punched him when he told her so, but he didn't relent.

"yup, definitely a sourwolf," he had mumbled. she let it slide.

she's moody -- but none of the moods are ever good. she hops from burning anger to hopeless depression to the worst of all: emptiness -- completely void of any emotion, her body just a shell with no soul. that's what cora hates the most; the hollow feeling inside, like her guts have been scooped out with a spoon, like someone grabbed her brain and chucked it out the window, leaving her achingly empty.

a year, it's been, since she last saw her girl. is she still allowed to call her hers? she wonders if allison is still hers. probably not. she made that clear to everyone else when she left beacon hills, running away from cora and their life together without so much as a note or a phone call. cora still can't help but wonder, she still can't help but hope. oh god, does she hope. every day, she hopes that when she comes home from her mediocre job at her college's cafe, allison will be sprawled on the floor, nose-deep in textbooks, waiting for cora to return. she hopes that she walks into her bedroom at night, allison will be in their bed, already dozing off on the left side of the bed even though the lights are still on. she hopes that allison will someday decide to come back home to cora, to be her girl once more.

when cora first met allison, she never expected things to end this way. of course she didn't. when they first met, cora was always overwhelmed with this irrational urge to punch the girl, honestly. but allison learned cora, paid her attention and comforting words even though she didn't deserve them. she looked at cora in this way that no one else ever had before, like cora was a diamond in a bed of coal. allison read into her like a children's book, teaching cora things she didn't even know about herself. allison became this journey, an adventure, a trip into no man's land. she was exciting and bold and despite the innocent look on her face, she was mischievous and defiant. she brought cora into a world she never knew before.

their romance was passionate. not perfect, no, not even close -- they bickered and fought and sometimes even flat out ignored each other for days (cora never worried though; they always found and forgave each other in the end. now that she thinks about it, she probably should have worried, should have factored in that maybe allison wouldn't come home; that may have softened the blow when allison disappeared.) -- but they loved each other with a heat, loved each other to the end of the earth, gave each other the world. they made promises of undying, unconditional love, ones that cora thought they’d both intended to keep. she thought that allison meant it when she said, “forever.” cora still believes in forever, but in a whole new light.

she wonders when allison's forever ended.

six years, they had been together. their relationship blossomed in allison's junior year of high school, sort of sending everyone into a shock, including themselves. when they graduated, they made haste to move in with each other. cora often wonders if that's where it started to go wrong. did they move too fast? was it just too much for allison? she finds herself pondering over this almost always; derek says it's unhealthy. she remembers when he first told her that, two months after allison left. she had pushed him away.

 

"cora, you need to stop," derek said. he stood with his arms crossed, looking at her to where she was staring indifferently out the window (thinking about allison). she looked up. her eyes were rimmed with red, the white around the irises pink and puffy. she'd been crying a lot in the first few months without her girl. "let her go. this isn't healthy."

"what would you know about healthy relationships?" cora scoffs, "let's talk about yours. paige; you killed her and cried about it for ages," derek winced, but cora didn't care, "kate? she burned our family alive. jennifer was a homicidal mythical creature, also dead. and stiles is aggressive and argumentative and after five years, his father still thinks you're a criminal. you sure are one to give relationship advice," she spitted out, her tone venomous and sarcastic. she didn't want to hear derek's lectures about love. she wanted her huntress in her arms. she felt derek's eyes narrow. she'd angered him, which was what she was trying to do, but she smelled the sympathy radiating off of him too. she didn't like that. he walked over to her bed and slung an arm around her shoulder.

"...i'm worried about you, is all," he explained softly, "i don't know if you've noticed, but all of our family really sucks at emotions." cora chuckled weakly but tears bit at her eyes and a sob escaped her lips.  
"i miss her derek, i miss her," she cried, rocking into derek's arms. she howled into his shirt for hours until he laid her down to sleep.

 

cora is able to think about things now. she's able to ask herself questions, no more tears. except for nights when it's really bad; when she wakes up at two a.m, sobbing into her pillow after a nightmare. she dreams about it a lot, sees her beautiful face in the back of her eyelids. but her huntress's face in those dreams is hollow, void of emotion. in the dreams, allison whispers cruel words into cora's ear, unlike the lullabies she heard from those lips so long ago. those are nights when she agrees with derek's words about her broken relationship.  


the day allison left was the day cora's heart shattered, because the night before she fled cora had gotten down on one knee with a diamond ring and asked for her hand in marriage. they both cried, and allison said yes, but when cora thinks about it now, her smile was less than enthusiastic; it was almost sad, like she knew what was coming. that night was the happiest night of cora's life. the next day was the absolute worst. she woke up without allison in her arms. she woke up to find allison's wardrobe had been completely emptied. the worst part, she thinks, was finding the diamond ring laid on the pillow next to hers.  
she had stayed up all night, waited for a phone call, an e-mail, an explanation. she got nothing of the sort. she did that for weeks, and didn't get so much as a text.  
so, despite her outrageous, supernaturally high alcohol tolerance, she gathered as much whiskey as she could and tried her best to get plastered. she was tipsy when she called allison for the first time.  
it rang eight times.

 _"hey, it's allison-cora, stop it,"_ that was allison's voicemail, and it felt like salt in a wound. she remembered that day. allison just got her new phone, and was trying to set up voicemail, but cora kept distracting her. they were rolling around in bed, and cora peppered kisses to her neck and spine, let her hot breath tickle against allison's skin. it left her huntress giggling like windchimes, and it was cora's favorite sound in the world.  _".. sorry i couldn't pick up - cora! um, i'll call you later!"_ allison kept the recording that way. cora called her a sap. they rolled around in the sheets and forgot the world and got lost in the taste of each other's skin. cora gritted her teeth when she heard the recording. tears fell from her eyes like a stream and her claws were itching to push through her fingertips.  
there was a beep from the other line.

"where are you?" cora asked, her voice breaking, "why did you leave?" she paused, as if expecting an answer. "i can't believe...i can't believe you. how dare..how dare you? i thought... i thought we were good. i thought.." she broke off, "you promised me, allison. you said forever, do you remember that? you made a promise. you made a million promises. were they all empty? did you really sleep with scott that one night before our anniversary? or was that another lie? why did you do this to me allison?" she stopped to choke back a sob. "i love you. i gave you all that i had. i love you, allison argent, and i always will, but you're so..." cora tried to find something, _anything,_ to say, but was left with nothing. "when i was shopping for that ring, all that ran through my mind was our promises to each other. i wanted to find something extravagant, but simple, something beautiful, but easy, like us. i wanted it to be a reminder to you, that we were forever... i may not be your forever anymore, allison, but you sure are mine. and i hate you for it. i want to find you, and maul you, like any other sane person would, but i'm so out of my mind for you, do you know that? do you know what it's like, waking up without you here? it's hell, allison. hell," cora could feel herself sobering up and knew she wasn't making sense anymore. "i hope you listen to this a thousand times and it drives you crazy. i hope my name is a constant on your tongue, and that all you think about is me. i hope you feel like shit after this. i hope you feel like an asshole. i love you. why did you do this?" cora finished and hung up. she never got a call back.

 

today is a bad day. cora wakes up with allison's name in her mouth. she rolls over to wrap an arm around her girl. all she gets is a fistful of sheets. she lets out a shuddery breath and looks at the left side of the bed, the emptiness still so _foreign._ waking up without her is something cora thinks she'll never get used to. but she sits up and stretches, and gets through her normal routine. she walks downstairs to leave for her run to see the pack is sitting in her living room; scott, stiles, isaac, lydia, peter, and derek. they all have sullen looks on their faces. lydia is sobbing into stiles's shoulder, and scott has his head in his hands.

"what's going on?" cora asks. everyone is in black. she doesn't like where this is going.

derek turns to look at her. he looks guilty and sad, the saddest cora's seen him in a while. the room is still, and cora's question goes unanswered.

"what the hell is happening?" she demands, her temper flaring. stiles sighs and gestures for her to sit next to him on the couch. she makes her way over slowly. she gulps; she's scared, she's so scared.

"we got a call," stiles begins to explain.

"okay? from who?"

"...chris argent," he answers. his voice is cracked and his breath is shuddery, but he is not crying. cora has always seen stiles as a strong boy, fierce and passionate. he's eerily calm in the middle of tragedy, and she respects him. the name argent sends a shiver down cora's spine, and her lip quivers. _allison._

 _  
_"..what happened?" she inquires quietly, but she already knows. she knows, she knows, she knows; but there's a tiny bit of hope still edging in the back of her mind. she inhales deeply to calm herself.

"allison..allison is..she's," stiles stutters, and that's enough confirmation for cora.

"she croaked," peter pipes up, his voice small and sad. cora nods once.

"peter," derek warns.

"it's..." cora means to say it's fine, but it isn't. nothing is fine. she is not okay, she never will be okay. she gets up and bolts out of the house. she runs and runs and runs through the deep, dead woods. she runs until the sun goes down, and her feet give up. she reaches a steep hill and sits on the edge of it.

she howls. she lets her wolf come out to mourn, and howls and it's such a cliche. lone wolf cries at the moon. allison would have laughed at that.

she shifts and she's puny, human cora again. she curls in on herself, hugs her knees to her chest and lets the sobs take control. her shoulders shake so violently she thinks her collarbones might snap, and her choked out sobs come out so forcefully she thinks her ribcage might collapse. those things would heal.

this won't.

cora screams. she screams at the top of her lungs until her voice is raspy and barely there. she almost outdoes lydia's cries.

she's crying so hard she barely hears the footsteps approaching her. it's derek, she knows. cora knows too much, she thinks. she wants to stop knowing and stop thinking.

she feels his arms wrap around her tightly. he whispers things into her hair but she doesn't remember what they were because she's so utterly _heartbroken_ and _alone_ and _devastated_ that she thinks she might black out. she clings to derek's torso and cries into his chest for what seems like the millionth time in a year. she can't breathe. do wolves get panic attacks? she thinks she's having one. _no, this is how it feels when you lose your mate,_ she thinks. her mate. allison was her mate. she thinks that's a million times worse than a panic attack.

"derek?" she asks, her voice so low she's surprised derek heard.

"hmm?"

"does it ever stop?" she inquires. derek knows what she means. paige was derek's first mate. usually, a wolf is supposed to have only one mate, but every so often they find a new one after their first is lost. stiles is derek's second chance, and he's happy, but that doesn't mean he forgot the pain of losing paige. how could anyone forget such a terrible feeling?

  
"not really," he whispers. just the sort of vague answer you'd expect from derek. they fall back into a silence, the only sound being cora's hard breathing.

"how did it happen?"

"it...was a car crash. she died on impact. they said she was headed back to beacon hills," he answers gently, carefully.

"oh," is all his sister manages to choke out. that should add to her pain, the fact that allison was coming back, the fact that she never made it. but that was the numbing factor. the last straw, the one that made cora go completely void.

"they want you to speak at her funeral," he tells her, "but only if you want to. it's going to be small, just chris and the pack."

cora nods. she wants to, she really does. she still has so much left to say to her huntress.

 

  


**********************************

"we're here today to celebrate the life of my daughter and your friend, allison," chris argent announces weakly. the pack have arrived at allison's funeral. it's the first time cora has seen chris in a year, and he looks terrible. he has heavy, purple bags under his eyes, and he's about fifty shades lighter than he used to be. his eyes are lifeless and wet, and he looks down at cards on the podium and tries to read them, but the words get lost in his cries and peter has to finish the rest of his speech for him.

  
after lydia and scott's eulogies, it's cora's turn. she wants to throw up, but she hasn't eaten anything in the last three days.

she stands up at the podium, straightening the black maxi dress that she knew allison liked ("it looks very... victorian. it gives you a sexy, mysterious aura. i love it.")

she has no note cards, and it must look very unprepared and unorganized to everyone but derek, because he understands. he understands that she doesn't need to read words off of a paper when she can just pull them from her mind.

  
"i hated allison when i met her first. i thought she was arrogant, and self-preserving. i thought she fought for all the wrong reasons," she begins. she's grateful her voice doesn't give out like lydia's did. "i tried my best to stay away from her. i didn't trust her, and i didn't try to. but allison," she pauses, "allison never gave up on me. she tried to open me up to her for so long before i finally gave in. she-- she had this look, that she gave me, it was hopeful, determined, earnest. i remember seeing it that first time, and i thought, 'maybe i was wrong. this girl knows what she's doing and why she's doing it.' she was a brilliant warrior, but she was just as radiant without a crossbow. she just gave off an aura. it was almost addicting, intoxicating. allison.. she just made you feel lighter, and daring. made you wanna, i dunno, explore. see new places, meet new people, do new things.." cora wipes warm tears from her face and stares at the horizon. she doesn't meet anyone's eyes. "allison was my only love. she is my mate, she's irreplaceable. she was a friend, a daughter, and a part of our pack; that's why when she left beacon hills a year and a half ago, i hated her. well, at least i wanted to -- i think it's impossible not to love her... but at the time, i thought i wanted her dead. but now.. now, i'd give anything, _anything,_ to have her back. i'm sure we all would. i was supposed to have a life with her. we were supposed to find our way back to each other, but that's been stolen from me. permanently. she's been stolen from all of us. and--and..." cora could write books about how wrong this is, how _unfair_ it is. but she chokes on her words and breaks down. she tries to calm herself, because she still has so much left to say in honor of her huntress, but her knees buckle beneath her and she suddenly feels arms around her. she looks up, expecting derek, but sees chris argent instead.

"it's okay, cora. that was lovely," he says softly, struggling to get his words out between his own quiet sobs. she leans into him and they cry in each other's arms for a few minutes until chris pulls her limp, shaking body to stand. they walk to back to the rest of the pack where they have dispersed to look at allison's open casket. cora almost walks away, _runs_ away, but she hasn't seen her girl in a year and she just wants to see her beautiful face one last time before her final goodbye.  


she looks into the casket. allison looks beautiful, but empty, so horrendously lifeless. her raven hair is combed, framed around her pale face. her cheeks are a rosy pink, and cora guesses that was the mortician's attempt to bring liveliness to her girl. her well sculpted eyebrows lay in a natural arch above her golden eyelids. her lips lay in a flat line, plump and pink. she looks calm, but too calm; it's eerie. cora shivers and looks away, but something catches her eye as she tries to revert her gaze. allison's hands are clutching onto a piece of paper. cora inhales, smells the perfume allison knew cora liked, and discreetly tugged the note from her huntress's grip.  


she unfolds it and reads:   


_cora._  


_my love, my sunshine, my better half - this is an apology.  
_

_i..  
_

_leaving you like that, without a trace, was.. it was the worst mistake i've ever made in my entire life. the worst, most terrible thing i have ever done.  
_

_it's my biggest regret.  
_

_i was scared, cora, so scared. i needed to get away. i was becoming codependent. i found it harder to breathe when i was without you. when you proposed, i said yes; how could i deny you? but later that night, after we made love, i thought and thought, and you know that when i think, i overanalyze and panic. i panicked and it lead me to the saddest point in my life.  
_

_i don't expect you to forgive me, or welcome me with open arms. but i hope you can find it somewhere in you to give it time. let us start over. because i really, really, can't live without you, cora. that year alone felt like an eternity. think it over, please. i should have done this a lot earlier. but please, try to remember our spark.  
_

_i love you. god, do i love you.  
_

_\- sincerely,  
_

_your huntress.  
_

_  
_

_  
_cora's tears fall onto the paper, smearing the last few letters.

"allison, you idiot," she whispers. she cries into her hands.  


after the funeral ends, she lies in bed, clutching allison's letter to her chest. the tears have stopped. cora is numb, all pins and needles. she can't feel a thing. she thinks she likes it this way now.  


  


she can't sleep, so she gets up and sits down at her desk. she writes a letter.  


  


_allison,_  


_i miss you.  
_

_i miss you like the moon misses the sun, or like winter misses summer, or whatever. i've never been good with similes._ _  
_

_i want to hate you. i don't want to love you anymore. derek says it's not healthy. though, i hated you for quite a while.  
_

_it's funny, how when someone dies, your hate goes with them, but your love runs on. does that make sense?  i think you get what i mean.  
_

_i'm never going to stop loving you. i howl for you every night. i ache to see your face. my bones are hollow and my emotions are numb. i want you back. i want to see you milling about the apartment. i want you to sing to me when i do the dishes, like you used to. i want to curl around you, be your bigger spoon. i want you to hug me and kiss my temple when my anger rises. i want to read stories to you again. i want you to hold my hand. i want to feel your lips on mine. i want to explore your skin over and over again.  
_

_i want you, i want you, i want you.  
_

_i need you, i need you, i need you.  
_

_\- sincerely,  
_

_your shewolf.  
_

 

 

 cora splashes it with allison's favorite perfume. the next day, she leaves the envelope with a sunflower and the engagement ring she held onto for a lonely year on allison's tombstone. 

  


cora feels empty. she thinks she needs to get used to it.  


  


_i will see you again one day, allison argent. i swear. i'll find you,_ she promises. she means it.  


 


End file.
